1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to digital camera techniques and especially to improvements in the convenience of a live view display and the like.
2. Description of the Background Art
On release of the shutter, conventional digital cameras stop a live view display, i.e., a real-time display of a subject on a monitor, and perform image processing for image recording which is followed by the shutter release, then perform image processing for live view display after the completion of the image processing for recording.
Because all the image processing is conducted by a single image processor, a user cannot visually identify a live view image for a while after a shutter release until the image processing for recording is completed.
FIG. 15 shows an example of a sequence of operations of the conventional digital cameras.
After a shutter release operation, i.e., a full press of the shutter release button, a time Ta for exposure and storage in a CCD, a time Tb to read out image data stored in the CCD, correct the black level and the like of the image data, and write resultant raw data into memory, and a time Tc for the aforementioned image processing become necessary. During those times or a total time Td (=Ta+Tb+Tc), a live view display is not produced.
An image pickup device with approximately one-million-pixel resolution requires a relatively short time of image processing. Thus, not displaying a live view image during the image processing is felt quite normal by a user without a hitch.
However, a digital camera having an image pickup device with approximately five- to six-million pixel resolution has large amounts of data to be processed. In this case, it can be predicted that the time during which a user cannot visually recognize a live view display will increase. Such an increase in the time of not displaying a live view image may cause problems such as missing a shutter release opportunity, impairing the convenience of the digital camera because of unpleasantness in framing during image capture, and the like.